GOP bid to link California drought measure, farm bill fails

UPDATE: House Republicans failed in their last-minute effort to insert a policy rider into the farm bill that would have diverted water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to parched farms in the Central Valley. The lawmakers may still seek out another legislative vehicle or attempt to move a stand-alone bill.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Backed by House Speaker John Boehner, three California Republicans said Monday they would try to insert a provision into the giant farm bill that would divert water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farms in the Central Valley, vastly raising the stakes in the struggle between fish and farms amid California’s severe drought.

The river restoration is intended to save salmon and other fish that have been decimated by past water diversions and are suffering in the current drought. Past closures of salmon fisheries have wreaked economic havoc in the coastal fishing industry.

Rep. John Garamendi, a Walnut Grove (Sacramento County) Democrat who sits on the Ag Committee, called the move “a great way to delay the farm bill for another year,” and said it would deprive not just fish of water, but farmers along the San Joaquin river.

“This farm bill has been highly contentious,” Garamendi said. “It is irresponsible to toss into the farm bill at the very last moment a very, very controversial issue and to simply use raw political power to steal water from farmers…There are farmers along the San Joaquin river as well as fish.”

Nunes spokesman Jack Langer dismissed the concern that the water provision would have delayed the farm bill. “It’s not controversial outside of California,” Langer said. “It’s a pretty routine matter for almost everybody.”

The GOP effort was an attempt to insert a policy rider, similar to an earmark, into must-pass legislation. The rider had not been considered by any congressional committee and is not even public. It would overturn major water decisions hashed out by courts and lawmakers over many years.

The Central Valley Republicans said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., had agreed to press the “legislative fix” to the House-Senate conference committee negotiating the farm bill to “relieve the water crisis in the south valley.”

The farm bill has been under negotiation for at least two years, delayed by numerous controversies. The legislation was made public late Monday and is expected to reach the House floor for a vote on passage Wednesday.The bill covers a vast array of programs, from food stamps to stockyard rules.

The Republican maneuver caught Democratic lawmakers by surprise. “This is 100 percent political theatrics,” one Democratic aide said. Democrats view the maneuver as a way to boost vulnerable Central Valley House Republicans in the midterm elections.

Boehner, R-Ohio, stood last week with the lawmakers in a dry field near Bakersfield to symbolize the political importance Republicans place on the issue. “When you come to a place by California, and you come from my part of the world, you just shake your head and wonder, what kind of nonsense does the bureaucracy do out here?” Boehner said. “How can you favor fish over people is something that people from my part of the world would never understand.”